There’s been a lot of changes in the way people have worked over the last few years.

For starters, 2020 forced companies to figure out how to be productive during stay-at-home orders. And, remote work—once a dream for many—became the new norm.

This opened up new ways of thinking: particularly, how to revolutionize work rhythms to provide better conditions for employees.

At Weglot, a top priority (alongside our customers and product, of course) has always been our team. We’ve seen firsthand the link between an enthusiastic team and a more powerful product. So wherever possible, we wanted to give our employees the time and flexibility they needed to continue to evolve in their professional lives while being fully present in their personal lives.

After all, our goal is to provide a stimulating environment where each member feels accomplished in their role and encouraged to explore their potential. We believe that job satisfaction plays a huge part in the team’s personal lives, and we want to ensure that by giving the team what they need to grow.

Fueled by our co-founders Rémy Berda and Augustin Prot and their ambition to make Weglot a place that puts the team’s well-being at its core, the discussion of adopting a 4-day workweek began back in late 2022.

And, spoiler alert, the discussion became a reality. Hello, 4-day workweek!

So, let’s take an internal look at how we did it, our learnings, and why we can now say our team is more engaged than ever.  

Why Did We Decide to Trial the 4-Day Workweek?

Cutting the workweek from 5 days to 4 days was a radical proposal, but our co-founders, team, and stakeholders felt it could benefit the company as a whole.

However, this wasn’t a decision that could be taken lightly, of course. But with Weglot’s rapid growth and financial stability came the opportunity to enable a better work-life balance and ultimately improve the team’s well-being.

We want our team to be happy and fulfilled, and we know that work won’t always be a part of that. But we try our very best: we love celebrating our milestones through after-work gatherings, team lunches, annual off-site seminars, and team buildings every quarter that range from laser tag to boat rides.

After all, at Weglot, people lead the way, and we want the team to have a good balance between their personal and professional commitments.

As our team has grown—we’re now over 50 members—we constantly update our policies to ensure they work for everyone. And feedback is a crucial part of this.

Everyone has a voice, and we always encourage everyone to ask questions, suggest new ideas, and let us know what they think about a process. Curiosity and ambition are part of our core values at the end of the day!

So that’s why it was important that the whole Weglot team was in agreement about a potential 4-day workweek, and that we got their endorsement before the trial began.

Naturally, it was a unanimous yes from all!

How We Prepared to Implement the 4-Day Workweek Trial

The first step was to take inspiration and learnings from other companies who had successfully rolled out a 4-day working week.

Rémy, Augustin, and I (as the People Team Lead) pored over a vast number of resources (I’ve compiled them here, all in French) that could support how we’d shape our work rhythm.

It’s also important to specify what kind of 4-day workweek we experimented with. Circling back to why we started this experiment in the first place—a better work-life balance—the aim was to have a workweek consisting of 4 days, not cramming the 5-day workweek into 4 days.

We didn’t want the team to work longer hours to make up for the day off.

But that meant the team had to work smarter and more efficiently to enjoy the full benefits of this experiment.

Naturally, there were challenges we wanted to address before we started the experiment. In particular, how to maintain the same level of 5-star technical support for our customers.

While the 4-day work week was a big internal change, it was also one that could most definitely not be felt externally.

We pride ourselves on the reactive support we provide our customers. As the biggest team in the company, we quickly realized we couldn’t all be off the same day of the week.

This led us to offer Wednesday or Friday as the day off. Alternating between the 2 every quarter ensured that there would always be team members on top of things while allowing others to disconnect completely and truly enjoy their time off.

It’s also important to note that co-founders Rémy and Augustin were very clear that we would hire new positions if we felt there was a need.

The 4-Day Workweek Test Period

Once the 4-day workweek was approved, we began laying the groundwork to help the trial succeed: trimming our meetings and making them more efficient, optimizing time spent in meetings, enforcing new communication rules to ensure everyone was undisturbed on their day off, and more.

To ensure we were doing this right, we sent a questionnaire every 2 weeks. It informed us of changes in our team’s well-being, ensured that the team had the right workload, and allowed us to gauge their satisfaction with the new rhythm.

We also split the trial period in 2, testing across Q4 2023 and Q1 2024. This gave us the flexibility to assess and readjust aspects of the experiment as necessary.

These include reorganizing tasks, hiring more team members, and introducing new processes. For example, in the code review process, 2 people were required to verify and validate it before deploying a new feature. But now, if this falls on a day off, one person is enough to do the job.

At the end of December, we renewed the experiment for another 3 months to see what the test would look like with our learnings applied.

What changed? From January to March, two-thirds of the team alternated their days off. And some people felt the changes more than others.

But even though the team overall faced many challenges, the benefits from having an extra day off easily outweighed these.

We asked the team what their day off allowed them to do that wasn’t previously possible. Here’s what they said:

• Test the lunch menus at restaurants, which are often twice as cheap as the evening
• Spend more time with their friends and family, especially for the parents, as young children in France don’t go to school on Wednesdays
• Take up horseback riding and tennis
• Assist their partners in their professional life, such as creating a website for their partner’s painting restoration business
• Volunteer assignments such as teaching English classes, preparing and distributing hot meals at a soup kitchen, cleaning litter off the ground
• Have more time for medical and administrative appointments

On the other hand, as expected, there were some challenges, including:

• The test period coincided with an exceptional time at Weglot: we welcomed 6 babies within 3 months, amounting to 11 in total in 2023.
• We migrated our content delivery network (CDN), which generated more inquiries than usual for our technical support team.
• Having Wednesday as the day off. For certain teams, in particular, sales and marketing, there was an adjustment to be made working with this rhythm. Cutting the workweek in 2 interrupted the flow of discussion for the team members and made sign-offs longer.
• How the team managed their time. If something unexpected happens on one day, that leaves even less time for the remaining 3 days to catch up on what has been delayed.

Still, the challenges—both unexpected and foreseen—showed us that there will never be a perfect time to test important changes to the company. But the success of the experiment also proved that we could get through them together.

Adopting the 4-Day Workweek

Regardless of the natural challenges seen along the way, 100% of the team was satisfied with the new 4-day work rhythm and said it drastically improved their work-life balance. Having more personal time allowed the team to start the workweek in better shape and allowed them to be more efficient and creative.

We also learned how to rebalance the workload. In the beginning, while everyone was still getting their bearings, there were more challenges to manage. As we progressed with the trial, we learned to adapt so that it felt more appropriate and doable.

After 6 months of experimentation, we can confidently say that the team’s well-being improved. In response to the question, “How are you?” at the start of the experiment, 82% responded “very well” and 18% “well”. 6 months later, that same question was met with a 92% response of “very well”.

Though we have a team of different nationalities, ages, and lifestyles, the advantages of the new rhythm were clear and visible.

Conclusion

In 3 consecutive years, we’ve had a retention rate of 100% after the successful completion of the probationary period of our employees. And we believe that implementing the 4-day workweek will help us maintain this.

Naturally, adapting to the 4-day workweek is still an evolving process, and there’s no magic bullet for making things work from day 1. But with the right attitude from the team and stakeholders, we can confidently say we’ve made it work for us.

CEO and co-founder, Augustin said of the experiment, “If you had told me 10 years ago that I would one day test a 4-day workweek, I probably would have rolled my eyes at you. But trying it for 6 months alone at Weglot already yielded results so positive that the only choice moving forward was to adopt it permanently.”

So there you have it: it’s official, we did it! A 4-day work week has now been rolled out permanently. A change that’s only been made possible thanks to the efforts of the whole team and the continued support of our co-founders.

We’re proud to join hundreds of other companies successfully implementing this into their company culture!